I'm in a Coma, Right?
by goodguysareok
Summary: Follow the wacky, goofy adventures of a subpar high school student dropped into a city (somehow) worse than Detroit! I'm joking of course, Detroit is far worse.
1. Prologue

"Mr. Veder, so happy for you to finally be joining us!" a voice blared across my consciousness.

 _Ah, not me then, meaning I get a few more minutes of sleep,_ I thought as I readjusted my position on the desk. The surface of the desk felt _off_ for some reason. Strange, since I'd gotten quite familiar with the texture of the desk in my second period Spanish class over the past several months.

A thought drifted into my mind. _Since when do I have class with anybody named 'Veder'._

"Mr. Veder, wake up IMMEDIATELY!" somebody screamed. _This_ got me to perk up, I jerked my head up as an instinctive response to the racket occurring practically next to my ear.

I look up to see a fuming, bald man in a sports jacket standing right in front of me, shaking his head in exasperation. "Mr. Veder," he said, "I'm glad to see that you've decided to join us." He growled.

 _He's talking to me!_ I screamed in my head, I quickly sat up straight in my seat and tried to get into posture that said, 'Ready to learn sir!'

Still, I had to wonder why he thought my name was 'Veder'. The guy must have been a substitute, because I had never seen the man before in my li- _Wait... what!_ It was at this time that I realized that not only did I not recognize my teacher, but I didn't recognize the room, my desk, my classmates, or even my own hands.

Of course, when one finds themselves in such a scenario, there is only one thing to say, "How fucking high am I right now?"


	2. Log Entry- March 11, 2011

March 11, 2011

This is my first log entry, so I'm just gonna get the basic stuff out of the way.

I'm **really** confused right now.

It's only been a few hours since this entire fiasco began, but I have used my time to think some stuff over. I'm using somebody else's computer to type this, but that seems to be the least of my problems. Not only am I using someone else's computer, I'm also in someone else's house, eating their food, fucking their dog etc...

If most people found themselves in a scenario like mine, they probably would have freaked the fuck out and demanded answers about where they were and what was going on, leading others to question their mental health. I am not most people… I am Greg fucking Vedder (apparently), and I am far, far worse. After sitting in a vegetative state for several hours, unresponsive, I was driven to the emergency room. The doctor didn't find anything (physically) wrong with me and decided that my parents could take me home for the time being. Why I'm wasn't placed in the psychiatric ward is anyone's guess, since I was just sitting there practically catatonic.

That was how events were described to me, at least. I don't actually remember any of that happening. I'd always thought that I was a very cool-headed person, who wouldn't panic if any sort of disaster struck. I was wrong obviously, but we all have our delusions and I am no different. It could have something to do with hearing my own mental breakdown described by two people who I had never met before and claimed to be my parents. So maybe I'm being too hard on myself, waking up in a different body is probably a universally traumatic experience regardless of how "cool-headed" one considers themself. And yeah, the body that I'm in right now is definitely not my own. Maybe I'm not such a wimp for freaking out after all. Regardless, I'm glad that I got to keep my gender. No matter how much I liked the movie _Your Name_ , being a girl would just be too weird for me.

After waking up from my little blackout, I was able to work through the haze of confusion enough to convince the people who claimed to be my parents that I was fine and just "feeling a bit under the weather." Yeah right, no fucking way that they bought that one. Somehow, being in a vegetative trance didn't strike me as something that qualified you as "just a bit under the weather."

As luck would have it, I'm apparently an only child, that meant that I could get the fuck out of the kitchen as fast as humanly possible and lock myself in "my" bedroom without the embarrassment of choosing the wrong room. It looks like Greg is a big gamer, as evidenced by the many large posters on the wall advertising games that I've never heard of. After ignoring the calls knocks from Greg's parents (I think I'll think of Greg as his own person whose body I'm stealing), I sat down in the computer chair to think. The kid who owned this computer was clearly an idiot. No password protection on his computer, and my initial inspection of the Windows desktop turned up some let's say… interesting content. I thought that teenagers knew how to hide that stuff better, jeez.

Greg has his homepage set on a forum called "Parahumans Online." After careful examination, it appeared to be some kind of RP/Fanfic site about some superhero series. I'd never heard of a series called "Parahumans" so I shrugged it off. If Greg's default page was really a roleplaying site, then he might be an even bigger loser than I am, which is really saying something.

Alright, after a few hours of careful thought, I've come to the conclusion that I'm in a either having a lucid dream, or I've fallen into a coma. I'm afraid that it might be the latter option unfortunately. Thinking back, I can generally remember what was going on in my life before I woke up as Greg Vedder, but nothing from roughly a day beforehand.

Another damning piece of evidence pointing toward the "this is clearly not real life" conclusion is the date. Although I can't remember the last day or so before appearing as Greg, I clearly remember the year, 2018. Greg's computer indicates that the date is the 11th of March in the year 2011. The logical conclusion is that Greg changed the date on his computer for shits and giggles (I don't get it either). I instinctively reached into my pocket to confirm the date on my phone. Imagine my surprise when, instead of my Galaxy S7, I pull out a small phone with a sliding QWERTY keyboard. No biggie, I have a couple friends that still use that style of phone for financial reasons, and it's not like Greg's parents are that rich by the looks of it.

The lock screen on the phone clearly reads, **March 11, 2011**.

So yeah, definitely in a coma. Can't be lucid dreaming because you're not supposed to be able to read in dreams, or look in mirrors, or other things. Gotta give it to my mind though, My unconscious really put a lot of effort into fleshing out this los-, I mean Greg's room. Seriously, if some of these games were real, I might actually play them. Anyway, I don't know much about comas, but pop culture has made me believe that I should somehow hear people talking right now or something. Come on, where's the voice of my mother pleading for me to wake up? Honestly, I feel a bit cheated.

Anyway, I've decided to write out this log entry to test my lucidity and see if I have any major brain damage. I don't see anything that indicates brain damage yet, so at least one positive thing came from this experience. I'm gonna turn off the computer soon and sleep in this kid's bed. (Christ, that sounds weird.)

Hopefully, I'll wake up in a hospital to the loving faces of my family clustered around me in worry. (Who the fuck wishes for that to happen?) Anyway, it's been nice while it lasted weird coma dream, I hope that you fulfill your life ambitions.

On second thought, I'm sleeping on the floor.

Adios,

Will Scott

* * *

 **Author's Note:** **I'm going to be honest. I am** not **a writer, and I have no idea how to write anything resembling a good plot. I actually used the journal format on this chapter because I have no idea how to write dialogue properly. If any of you lovely readers has any ideas about where the plot should go from here, send me a PM or leave a review and I might just listen. That's all. Thank you for giving my shitty story the time of day. Sincerely, goodguysareok.**

 **Heh... it rhymed.**


	3. Chapter 1

My head felt like a tiny person was bashing their fists into brain. I turned over and groaned into my pillow, wanting nothing more than to fall back asleep. Christ, the pounding in my head was so strong I could almost hear it.

Wait… I could hear it.

"Will, get out of bed, you're going to be late!" My mother's voice made its way into my room, accompanied by another set of loud knocks on the door. Well,that explained the sound, at least. I pushed myself out of bed and slumped onto the floor, as my grogginess made itself known.

"Coming," I yelled at the door, "just give me a minute!"

After slipping on a pair of sweatpants, I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. Voices drifted upstairs from the kitchen. It sounded like my sister, Alina, was already up and ready to leave for work. Alina went to a nearby college and worked a part-time job at the zoo to help ease the financial burden for my parents.

I tiptoed my way across the hall and began my daily routine. Hopefully, by the end I would feel like a real person instead of a sleep deprived zombie. The shower did wonders for my cognitive awareness and general mood. After dressing, I made my way downstairs to find that my dad and sister had already gone to work. My mom, the only one left in the house, looked none to pleased at my timing this morning.

"Hi, Mom," I said, "nice weather we're we're having, huh?" By the look on her face, she wasn't that amused by my pathetic attempt at humor.

"You missed the bus William," she growled.

"But Mo-"

" **Again.** " She interrupted, stopping all protest from me.

I did have to admit that it was my fault, though. Sleeping too much was becoming a big problem of mine. I'd already missed the bus twice this week, something that had never happened before. Hell, I was even caught sleeping in class yester-

Wait, I **didn't** fall asleep in class yesterday. Which was a rare occurrence in and of itself, and thus highly memorable.

Maybe I'd had a dream about sleeping in class. If so, my subconscious was becoming super-meta. Way to go, me. I'd probably just mixed up the days in my head or something. When every school day was exactly the same as the last, memories tended to start blending together.

Grabbing a protein bar and saying goodbye to my mom, I resolved not to give the topic any more thought. It wasn't important or anything, right?

* * *

I decided that walking to school was much faster than making my way to the bus stop on the other side of town. I set out and, quickly fell into a decent stroll. Grabbing my headphones out of my pocket, I noticed two attractive blondes walking on the other side of the street. I was jealous. Why did every single blond have to be attractive, but me? I grumbled to myself about the unfairness of life until I was halfway to school, when I suddenly remembered that my hair was brown.

* * *

Throughout the day, a pattern started to emerge. Class would continue as normal, until I noticed some small detail about something. It could be my locker number, the taste of the drinking fountain, or even the names of my teachers. I had no idea where these thoughts were coming from. By the end of the day, I had gotten lost twice and addressed my APUSH teacher as 'Mr. Gladly.' During my Spanish presentation, I'd even said that my favorite city was 'Brockton Bay.' After that, one of my classmates came to my desk and said something along the lines of: 'I like worms too'... weird kid. Understandably, the whole day had me pretty damn worried. I decided to go to sleep earlier than usual. If weird shit continued to happen tomorrow, I'd get to a doctor ASAP.

On my way home, I ran into that kid again. He asked my something else about worms and I decided that that I couldn't deal with anymore weird shit today. I told the kid, named Jamie apparently, that I had to get home or my mom would be pissed. Admittedly, I didn't pay attention to a single thing that he said, but I think that going crazy is a pretty good excuse for being rude to the wei- Jamie.

At least I knew that Sparky wouldn't pull this kind of worm-obsessed bullshit if he were here. God dammit… who the fuck is Sparky?

At the dinner table, I told my mom that I wasn't feeling well enough to eat much. It was sort of true too. After the days events, I couldn't work up any kind of appetite. Since I couldn't think of anything else to do, I decided to just turn in for the night. My last thought before drifting off was that at least, tomorrow couldn't get any weirder.

* * *

I woke to a pounding on my door. It was pitch black in my room, and the curtains were drawn over the window. Wait, my room didn't have curtains.

"Greg, It's time to get up. Are you feeling ok? You won't force you to go to school if you don't want to."

 **Oh, fuck me.**


	4. Chapter 2

The sound of a woman's voice at the door sent me into a panic. I tried to remember the events of the previous day and found, to my immense relief, that I still held all of my normal memories (worm kid and all). Thinking back one day further, I remembered my panicked and desperate 'adventures' as Greg Veder (the parts that I remembered, anyways).

All of my weird memories from the day before made sense now. Well… not really, I was still super fucking confused about the whole **living in someone else's body** thing. Not content to just let me think things through, the universe decided to add to my stress by knocking on the door again (the will of the universe takes the form of an aging woman with blonde hair, apparently).

"Uhh..." I stumbled over my words, voice unfamiliar to me, "Yeah, um, I'll be out in a minute!" I called in Greg's squeaky, tenor, Mickey Mouse voice. I quickly recalled where Greg had left off with his family and quickly added, "I don't think I can make it to school today mom, I don't feel so good."

"Okay honey," she said, sounding resigned, "I'm off to work, call me if you need anything."

I waited in silence, before remembering that I had to respond. "Yea-" I coughed, "I'll call you if anything happens." Her footsteps retreated back along the carpeted hall, squeaking as she descended the staircase.

"Bye honey, I love you!" She called from the bottom of the stairs.

"Love you too, bye!" I called after her. The second I heard the door close, the tension in my body drained and I finally felt like I could breathe. I slumped to the floor and fell to my knees, shaking like a leaf. There was no way that this was real. I considered myself a skeptical person, despite the cancerous connotations the term 'skeptic' had, and there was no way that the universe just randomly decided to drop my mind into some other kid's body while I slept. Twice.

There was only one rational explanation. I was lucid dreaming. I had initially discarded the notion in favor of the (more likely) idea that I had fallen into a coma. Now however, It was pretty clear to me that a coma was no longer a viable explanation, seeing as I woke up and everything. I had no idea how somebody had consecutive lucid dreams which felt and acted like reality. But hey, what did I know? If what I knew about lucid dreaming (about thirty minutes of reading some people's blog posts a couple years ago) was correct, then I should be able to do literally whatever I wanted. I thought of all of the different dream checks I had heard about. Looking in mirrors, pressing fingers through your hand, flying at will etc... If I passed the tests, then I was definitely lucid dreaming. If I failed the tests, I was in reality.

I tried every single test.

I failed every single test.

Okay then, I was having a lucid dream completely indistinguishable from reality. Wow, I honestly didn't know what to do. Alright, my working theory was that this world existed only in my mind, but I still couldn't control it for some reason. I tried the reality checks again. They all failed… again. Dammit! If I was going to figure out what was going on, I needed more information. Since my brain wasn't treating this world like a dream, then I supposed that I wouldn't either. I could pretend that I was one of the protagonists in an isekei show! Where the hell were my OP powers? Seriously though, if I was going to 'live in' another world, there was one thing that I needed above all else, information. Where better to get information than the internet? My previous stint on Greg's- ah, fuck it- on _**my**_ computer hadn't been productive beyond learning that this world's version of me was a giant nerd with a capital 'n.' If I was going to learn how to act like Greg, since I still had to talk to his parents and all, I should probably familiarize myself with his interests. Let's take a look at 'Parahumans Online.'

* * *

Right off the bat, I noticed something strange about the date. It was March 12th. Yesterday, in the real world, the date had also been March 12th. It appeared that I was 'living' the same day over again, once in the real world and once in my dream. How the fuck _**that**_ worked, I had no idea. Wait a minute, holy shit, could I study for tests in my my dream just like real life. could I do that? I fucking hope so, no more hard work for me!

Right, back to research. The guys running PHO really put a lot of dedication into the realism aspect of the website. Tons of it looked like actual news, and I would have thought it was if the stuff it talked about wasn't so blatantly fake. I'll give to Greg though, it was really entertaining. I spend hours going over heros, villains, Endbringers, gangs, warlords and more! The universe that was built up reminded me of darker superhero stories like Watchmen or other works in that vein. I mean, holy shit, the Slaughterhouse Nine and the Siberian were genuinely terrifying. Enough so that if I hadn't known it was roleplaying, I would have thought that the people in threads about the Nine were genuinely afraid. The Endbringers too, people reacted to them the way that people reacted to 9/11 in the real world. I mean Jesus, there's dedication and then there's **dedication**.

Anyways, I could totally see what Greg found so fascinating about the site. I felt like I understood him more, and that maybe we were more alike than I had thought. Weird thoughts about a dream person who I was somehow replacing, but… it just felt right for some reason.

* * *

Nope, nope, nope, nope. I had thought that Greg and I were similar, but boy was I wrong. I had formed an understanding of the boy whose life I was stealing. I had empathy for Greg. What changed that? **I found his Youtube channel.** I imagined that his channel, were it to be described in a sentence, could be summarized by the phrase: 'rawr XD.' Why Greg? Why? Still, it did help me get more of a handle on his personality. Oh gods, was I going to have to act like this? Yeah, probably.

There were only two videos on the channel, both about fifteen minutes in length. One video was an unedited rant about a videogame that Greg liked. The video was literally just audio from a cheap sounding microphone with a game-related picture that I could guarantee was the first search result on Google Images. It was pretty hard to figure out what Greg was actually saying because, by the sound of it, he was practically kissing the microphone. This in and of itself gave me quite the insight into Greg's character and work ethic.

The second video actually had video footage in it. The video contained webcam footage showing Greg's bedroom in all of its messy glory. Speaking of Greg, his face occupied about a third of the frame. Consciously or unconsciously, Greg was still following the rule of thirds. Good job Greg! The actual content of the video consisted of Greg getting red-faced about trolls in his comments section. Apparently, "a bunch of mean people" were giving him some trouble about his opinions. Yes, those were the actual words that he used. Yes, I was embarrassed for him.

I decided that I was done with Greg's cringe-inducing online presence. I decided to see what was going on in my… uh head world, subconscious planet? I really needed a name for this place. Nowhere better to do that than the news, right? Oh good, my uhh… the other world still had the BBC, at least. I clicked on the link for world news and ummmm… what the hell? A picture of a black-clad woman dominated the top banner of the site. I recognized the woman from my earlier prowling on the internet, It was Alexandria.

Why the hell was a fictional character character in the top story on an actual news site? I checked the date again. Yep, March 12th, definitely not April 1st then. The article title read: 'The Making of the Protectorate: New Autobiography Reaches #1 on NY Times Bestseller List.' Scrolling down the page revealed a multitude of other stories, but no more superhero related articles. Clicking to expand the top article, I read through the entire article, and then I read it again. There was absolutely **zero** indication that the article was anything but real. I saw a banner on the side of the page, leading to a seperate page for 'Exclusively Cape News." Cape, the PHO term for any human possessing supernatural powers, also known as parahumans.

That meant that- no, no fucking way- it meant that Greg wasn't on some roleplaying forum. I hadn't been reading about some book or movies series. I had been reading about real life! The Endbringers, the Slaughterhouse Nine, the Protectorate, they were all **real**. God dammit me! Why couldn't my brain have come up with some peaceful world where I could chill and study in peace? **Fuck!**

Hold on… wait a minute. I was wrong. None of this was real. It was a dream, all of this was all in my head. What the hell did I have to worry about? People couldn't actually die in dreams, and by extension, I couldn't die in _**my**_ dreams. For all intents and purposes, I was immortal. The Nine, the Endbringers, all the monsters of this world were little better than nightmares. Were they scary? Fuck yes, but only as scary as the Slender Man, vampires, or ghosts. All scary, but presenting no real danger.

If there was no real danger to me, no negative consequences to my actions, then what was the world but a big sandbox for my enjoyment? It sounded like megalomania (even to me), but what else could it be. It was like a videogame. Heroes and villains. Gods (one god actually, that being Scion) and monsters. My mind had answered my calls for an escape from daily drudgery of my real life by giving me what I (and every other kid) wanted.

I had an entire superhero-themed world to play around in.

And **fuck me** , if I wasn't excited.


	5. Chapter 3

Ambition is nice and all, but I needed a goal. Even sandbox video games with no real stories have an end-goal of sorts. In Minecraft, for example, you could just fuck around and do nothing, but reaching the End and killing the boss there is the clear goal of the game. You don't have to play through the story in Grand Theft Auto, but a story still exists. I took a wild guess and assumed that the goal of my 'game' was to kill the Endbringers. The casualties that occurred as a result of their attacks were astonishing. If anything in the world could be described by the term 'true evil' it would be the Endbringers.

There was, of course, just a teensy weensy little obstacle in the way of my goal. I was weak, cowardly, and stupid. If somebody wants to go conquer the world (or any other large ambition), they either have to be very strong, or very smart. Even if someone possesses both of those qualities, they still need the courage to take risks and confront obstacles. If one was to describe the body of Darren Vedder with one word, the word certainly would not be 'strong.' A more accurate descriptive word would be: skinny, lanky, frail, or weak (sorry Greg). And although I wouldn't consider myself stupid by any stretch of the imagination, I certainly didn't have the mental capacity to kill an Endbringer with brain power alone. When I was younger, I had trouble playing sports. I was always afraid of being hit in the eye by a baseball, kicked in the stomach in soccer, punched in the facing during… uh… other stuff. I honestly couldn't remember all of the sports that I abandoned as a kid. Nonetheless, I definitely didn't have the courage to fight a god-monster the size of a building.

Luckily, it seems that my subconscious had my dismal physical and mental traits in mind when creating this world. Why? Because there was a one word solution to remedy my three specific problems, and that word... was superpowers. Seriously, from what I'd seen on PHO, there was no weakness that couldn't be overcome with the right set of powers. And thus, another problem was made apparent to me. I didn't have any powers. How insane was it that my subconscious created a **super-powered world** for me, but I remained an unpowered dweeb. Speaking of which, how the hell had powers come about? It was research time baby!

Okay, turns out that my 'research' only lasted for about five minutes. Thanks to Google, I now had a basic understanding of parahuman powers and their origins. I'd already learned about Scion and the events surrounding him, so I already knew that piece of the puzzle. Turns out that when certain people undergo a traumatic experience, they magically develop powers... sometimes... for some reason. Obviously, they didn't actually get their powers through magic. Apparently, powers had something to do with the Corona po… pu…-some part of the brain. I was a high school kid, and a sub-par one at that, not a neuroscientist. Regardless, the only trauma I'd ever experienced in my life was blacking out for a bit after realizing that I wasn't in the right body. Sure, it was shocking, but it didn't qualify as traumatic. I'd even forgotten about the entire thing after waking up. Granted, I never remembered my dreams, but still, unless I wanted to willingly put myself in a situation so pants-shittingly scary that my **brain changes itself to survive**. I could go ahead and dismiss superpowers as a possibility.

It was at this thought that I had my eureka moment! If the world was (sort of) like a videogame, then the best way to go forward was to start playing. Surely, if I went outside and looked hard enough something would show up, right?

* * *

No, apparently not. I walked around Brockton Bay in the middle of the day for a total of three and a half hours and not one single opportunity to 'level up' or become stronger presented itself. Maybe I was going about this wrong. I had just assumed that the world would present opportunities to me on a silver platter, but maybe I had to take a more proactive approach. Better start over from the beginning. What were my motivations? To finish the 'game' and kill the Endbringers. Okay, why did I want to do that? My subconscious created this entire world as a sort of game with bosses and an endgame. Why? For entertainment?

It all boiled down to entertainment. Thinking in terms of Endbringers immediately just wasn't how the game was played. Hehe, gettit, game? Nevermind. There were other things to consider as well. Heroes and villains. What set them apart? Heroes generally worked in the public eye in order to stop criminals and villains, they also fought the Endbringers in an attempt to save the world. In short, heroes wanted to make the world a better place through well… heroic deeds. Villains, on the other hand, were selfish, greedy, and pursued their own ends, often against the law. They too participated in Endbringer battles for the purpose of saving the world. Both heroes and villains worked against Endbringers, it's what they did for the rest of the time that really made the difference. Heroes were selfless, and villains were selfish.

Truth was, whenever I played video games or watched movies, I always rooted for the bad guys. I didn't do that in real life, obviously, because bad guys actually hurt people. But, if I was correct, being a scheming villain in this world wouldn't actually hurt anybody. I could become one of the cool assassin types, working from the shadows etc. etc. Hey, I never said that I wasn't edgy as fuck. Besides, villains could go after other villains couldn't they. I'd read on PHO that there was a huge gang of neo-nazis in Brockton Bay. Although I wasn't exactly a fan of violence towards people with different opinions (no matter how vile the opinions are), this was different. I had read that some the initiations rituals for Empire Eighty-Eight (or just 'the Empire' for short) involved the beating and even murder of minorities in and around the Empire's territory. Yeah, if you physically attack people, all my respect for your first amendment rights go 'right' out the window. Hehe, gettit, okay I'll stop.

Speaking of racists, I didn't know if it was just me, but the name of the other major gang in the city, the Azn Bad Boys, didn't strike me as particularly inclusive. In fact, the only thing that the name struck me as was fucking terrible. 'Azn Bad Boys,' seriously? I could have created a better name in about two seconds! Good thing that everyone always referred to them as the ABB, otherwise I would have had to gouge out my ears every time someone brought them up in conversation.

Speaking of conversations, have you ever heard two normal, rational adults talking about which superhero signed their thingamajig last year. I have, and I'll tell you right now that it's one of the most disconcerting things I have ever heard. If being in a non-existent city wasn't enough to put me off, then seeing all the various cape-related advertising and references in daily life definitely was. No, I don't want the 'Armsmaster Special Hot Dog,' and who the fuck came up with that name? Fire them. But even **that** wasn't the weirdest thing that I came across on my walk around Brockton Bay. The weirdest thing I came across were the people. It wasn't that they acted strange, or showed outwardly that they were just constructs of my imagination. That was just it, they were just like real people. They looked and acted exactly like people in the real world did. At least, when people weren't referencing some cape-related matter. I had to stop and remind myself no less than fifteen times that the people I was exchanging small talk with were only figments of my imagination.

By the end of my excursion in Brockton Bay, it was about four in the afternoon. I had a better understanding of the world, a few things made more sense, and I was totally lost. Not lost as in confused, no, I had no idea where I was. Luckily, it seemed that Greg's phone had a map application with his address plugged in. Unfortunately, the app didn't track the phone, just the general location, was this how GPS apps worked in 2011, or was Greg's phone just that incompetent? This and other inane thoughts occupied my thoughts as I made my way back to Greg's house.

* * *

Damn. It seemed like I'd gotten so distracted with the circumstances surrounding my appearance in this world that I had totally forgotten about Greg's parents. Now, not only did I have to pretend to be their (pretty much dead) son, but I also had to come up with a plausible explanation for why Greg, despite (supposedly) feeling incredibly sick, spent several hours aimlessly walking around the city. Somebody like Greg would likely be hard-pressed to find a reason to go outside at all, so I wasn't too optimistic about coming up with any kind of plausible reasons. Wait a minute, I could use Greg's incredible stupidity against him! I was sure that Greg was the kind of person who would do stupid things for no reason at all, if his videos were anything to go by. So, all that I had to do was come up with a stupid excuse. Hopefully, Greg's parents would just dismiss it as another one of their son's strange quirks.

Pretending to be Greg in the long term was going to be a problem. I only had a short time to learn as much as I could about Greg Vedder before his friends and family started to notice something strange. I mean, with a personality like Greg's, there might not be many friends to actually notice anything. Still, the changes in Greg's personality and body language would be obvious to anyone paying the least bit of attention, either at school or at home. Luckily for me, people change. Unluckily for me, people don't change overnight. I had to come up for an explanation for the sudden change in Greg's personality. I couldn't tell the truth (obviously). Doing that would likely result in the proper medical authorities tossing me in the looney bin. Did they have mental hospitals here, or did somebody just have a power that dealt with all that shit. Enough distracting myself, I had to get inside and invent a plausible story for Mr. and Mrs. Vedder.

I briefly considered pulling the amnesia card, before quickly dismissing the thought. Amnesia didn't work like it did in the movies, I knew that much. I wasn't a doctor and there were definitely ways to tell if a person was faking. What if Greg's parents gave up everything they had to go to some cape for help, and the cape told them that I was faking my amnesia and that my memories looked very strange indeed. So yeah, amnesia was off the table. I briefly wondered why I was going through such effort in effort to appear normal. Since the world was really just a figment of my imagination, I could pretty much do whatever I wanted totally guilt free. But, for some reason, I didn't want to see anybody close to Greg get hurt. Maybe I already considered them some kind of fucked up 'family.' Who knows? For now, I resolved to put as much care and effort into my life as I would in the real world. Granted, I didn't really put a ton of effort into my real life to begin with, but that's besides the point.

I turned the corner onto Greg's street, all in all a nice neighborhood. Greg's house was one of the better maintained houses in the neighborhood. A new coat of paint helped hide the obvious old age of the house. There was a car in the driveway. I had no idea which parent had taken which car, so I was essentially going in blind. I knew how to deal with Greg's mom a little bit already, but Greg's dad posed a bigger threat, I had barely spoken with him so far and I couldn't get a read on him with such limited information. I guess I'd just have to wing it, then. The front door opened with a squeal, indicative of the house's age.

"I'm home!" I yelled from the foyer. The sound of my voice traveled into the worn house. I spotted a row of family portraits on the left and a set of hooks for coats on the wall to the right. Leaning back, I closed the door behind me with a thud. No response from inside the house. I stopped for a moment to contemplate the detail that had been put into this one house. Had I subconsciously thought out these people's entire life story? If so, way to go me! I wondered if my brain came up with all of this stuff beforehand, or if my subconscious just invented stuff wherever I went, like rendering in a video game. I really needed to stop with the video game analogies, lest I go back into 'take over the world' mode.

I looked up the staircase to my right. I'd spent most of my time in the house upstairs, it couldn't hurt to familiarize myself with the rest of the home. After all, I was trying to pass myself off as Greg Vedder, and Greg Vedder would definitely know where his own bathroom was. The house was old, but furnished like a newer home. I could've been a weird quirk of the parents, but there was also the possibility that the family was going to move soon. Gang activity getting worse perhaps? I familiarized myself with the kitchen, found the bathroom (I'd been getting a bit uncomfortable), explored the unfinished basement, and peered into what looked like a home office. Finally, I was finished taking a look at the basement and first floor. In my rush this morning, I'd neglected to take a look around the second floor. I climbed the stairs and took a look around. The second story was little more than a hallway with doors on either side and another door at the end of the hall. Something smelled a bit oof. I checked the door at the end of the hall, another bathroom, a bit messier than the other one in the house. I contemplated making myself a bowl of cereal -I hadn't eaten anything yet- as I opened the first door down the hall from the bathroom.

Blood.

The scent of blood hit me as soon as I opened the door, it whafted over me and I took a step back as the door slowly swung open. Through the doorway lay something straight out of a horror movie. An unmoving shape lay on a bed to my right, unmoving and covered in blood. The entire bed was completely soaked through with red, some dripping from the figure's outstretched hand onto the floor. I stumbled backwards in shock, and fell to my hands and knees, retching at the sight before me. "Wha-" I dry heaves shook me, and I curled up against the wall opposite the door. Dry heaving dissolved into coughing as I tried to stand. There was a body in that room. No no no no no, I hadn't signed up for this! This was just supposed to be a game, a game, just a game! Not real, just a game… not real, just a game. I repeated the mantra over and over again in my head, not that it helped any. It was just a dream, not real, the body in the other room wasn't real. I had no reason to be scared. Though I knew logically that nothing could really hurt me, I couldn't stop the bone-chilling terror making its way through my body. "I'm not scared, it's not real… I'm not scared, it's not real." The new mantra didn't seem to make any difference. Blackness encroached on the corners of my vision, and I collapsed to the floor again.

 _Suddenly, I was somewhere else. There was something else with me, it was almost beyond comprehension. An entity, vast and ever-changing, moving through the void and leaving shards of itself behind. Moving towards a point far in the distance. Destination? Agreement._

I woke up.


End file.
